Rhetorical questions or rhetorical uses of questions? Džemal Špago

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ISSN 2303-4858 
4.2 (2016): 102-115 
Džemal Špago: Rhetorical questions or rhetorical uses of questions?
 
 
syntactic indicators that those questions are rhetorical. Furthermore, questions 
with attached ridiculous (and obviously unacceptable) answers, questions incor-
porated into declarative or imperative sentences, questions realized in the form 
‘why + lexical verb’, as well as so-called auto responsive questions (those that al-
ready contain the only possible answer) are all typically rhetorical.
However, the most common form indicative of RQs is what we call semantic 
incompatibility. This basically refers to combining conflicting concepts in a ques-
tion, thereby indicating that the question is rhetorical.
In closing, although in most cases there are no formal differences between rhe-
torical and answer-eliciting questions, some RQs do have a specific form that dif-
ferentiates them from standard questions.